I Say Tomato

I'm frequently approached by loquacious individuals--specifically, gentlemen-- in the grocery store, as well as senior citizens, however the latter is a tale for another time. I'm not entirely sure why men--particularly middle-aged men--find the need to speak to me. Actually I have my suspicions--a gut instinct-- and they range from the very benign and friendly to the dangerously sociopathic; today the gentlemen registered somewhere in the middle.

The Particulars:

I needed two vine ripe tomatoes and so I began to do what I always do: fondle the produce. Produce needs to be handled so as to ascertain its quality and shelf life. And so I aggressively handled the tomatoes. I tried to do so generically, as I was already aware of his eyes upon me and I could feel--I could tell--that he was being more than an impartial spectator to my handling. Suddenly I was a general practitioner there to conduct a physical; I could feel it: I could hear him thinking it. He was ogling me as I went about my business and he made me extremely uncomfortable; it's a female instinct that just cannot be explained unless you've experienced it; and some women don't even have this instinct to rely upon. Some argue that to be ogled should be flattering, however it's not flattering, it's disgusting. There's a definitive difference between admiring and ogling and you know it when you feel it.

Now I'm a chatty individual and I have no problem with making eye contact and idle chit-chat in a grocery store; in fact, it can be rather pleasant to embrace the camaraderie a grocery store may have to offer. And so it would be a rarity for me to act a snob, however my gut instinct has always served me well and so when it goes into Defcon 5 I tend to listen to it and thus appear arrogant and snobbish. It's self-preservation.

And then he said it:

-What does one look for in a tomato?

Ugh. Really? Where's your wife (there's always a wife or significant other looming about, electively ignorant) and why are you just standing guard next to the tomatoes like a creep in the bushes? And what's with the salmon colored golf pants? Seriously, isn't there an online porn account that needs tending?

Now my answer is firmness- I look for firmness in a tomato, but there was no way in Hell I was going to respond with that little nugget of information given the guy was already visually and now audibly breaching my personal boundaries. And so I answered: color, I look for color.

Lie.

What I wanted to say was: piss off, freak. But I didn't. Instead, I collected my fruit, which had barely been inspected properly and quickly made my way over to the bananas. Yes, the bananas.

Thankfully he didn't follow me, as I managed to shoot him just enough stink-eye so as to say: piss off, freak.

jenji